My definition of a political piece of art would simply be something with a message that extends beyond the personal. By that definition, most art that resonates with a significant readership is automatically, in some sense, political. Certainly, Richard Blanco’s “One Today” is more decidedly political than Miley Cyrus’s “We Can’t Stop” (or is it?), butart always asks us to re-examine something and consider change, and change is always complicated by the realities of the social and cultural moment. I don’t mean to suggest this is the intended emphasis of every piece of art, but I think it is almost always among the forces at play (as opposed to our later week themes of love and religion, which are less universal in their presence within a given single work.)
A poem I found provocative for discussion as a political piece was “Indian Woman’s Death Song” from “Records of Woman” (57-59). The image of the betrayed woman and her child careening with strange triumph toward the cliff’s edge stuck with me long after reading. The poem took such pains to build empathy for the woman’s plight – I wondered whether that sympathetic depiction of Native Americans was unusual or standard in Hemans’s social circles at the time the piece was written. Was she edging her audience toward a fresh perception of the humanity of these people or confirming an already reforming notion of the “savage?” From a different political perspective I wondered about the feminist reading of the poem – on one hand it certainly captures the tyranny and anguish imposed by a man, and the apparent lack of viable options his wife perceives as a result of his behavior. And while the poem ends with the intentional death of a mother and child, Hemans certainly takes pains with diction and tone to represent their departure as headed toward a preferable alternative. The sensory overload was especially vivid in regard to sound – beginning with the titular death song and extending to the competing rush of the water, beating of the child’s heart, etc. combined memorably with the vivid visual images used to capture the unfaithful husband and repercussions of his action.
From EBB I can't help but choose an obvious selection, "The Runaway Slave at Pilgrim's Point." Like the "Indian woman" above, the piece ties unforgettable, heart-wrenching imagery with, in this case, a very overt political message regarding the dehumanization, violence, and other abuses that accompanied slavery. I would enjoy a conversation about ideas others had regarding the teaching of this poem. The length is a challenge for undergraduates, I think, but I also can appreciate the idea that EBB wants to deny our impulse to let the trip into this woman's world be a fleeting and forgotten glance. She wants us to stare, and be uncomfortable, and yearn for escape that is not present. I wondered what views people might have on the mother's decision to end her baby's life - was her motivation entirely governed by sparing her descendent the painful life in slavery she'd endured, or was it mixed with wrath for the sins committed against her, or something else entirely I'm neglecting here? (Or, from a pedagogical perspective, is your hope that students would view the protagonist as entirely heroic or something more complex?) An article by Sarah Brophy in Victorian poetry points out that the poem was written during EBB's honeymoon, when she was "most certainly still exhilarated by her defiance of her father in eloping with [Robert] Browning." I wondered if other teachers would suggest sharing this sort of biographical information in their work with students - on one hand the potential emotional reverberations between slave-holding father and disapproving daughter are fascinating, in another way they detract and distract from the political messages the poem itself intends. The danger would seem to be allowing an impression that the raw emotion that gives the piece much of its power is fueled by EBB's frustrations with her father and his patriarchal dominance rather than the admittedly parallel but far more critical slave/owner dynamics that are the genuine focus of the piece.
A poem I found provocative for discussion as a political piece was “Indian Woman’s Death Song” from “Records of Woman” (57-59). The image of the betrayed woman and her child careening with strange triumph toward the cliff’s edge stuck with me long after reading. The poem took such pains to build empathy for the woman’s plight – I wondered whether that sympathetic depiction of Native Americans was unusual or standard in Hemans’s social circles at the time the piece was written. Was she edging her audience toward a fresh perception of the humanity of these people or confirming an already reforming notion of the “savage?” From a different political perspective I wondered about the feminist reading of the poem – on one hand it certainly captures the tyranny and anguish imposed by a man, and the apparent lack of viable options his wife perceives as a result of his behavior. And while the poem ends with the intentional death of a mother and child, Hemans certainly takes pains with diction and tone to represent their departure as headed toward a preferable alternative. The sensory overload was especially vivid in regard to sound – beginning with the titular death song and extending to the competing rush of the water, beating of the child’s heart, etc. combined memorably with the vivid visual images used to capture the unfaithful husband and repercussions of his action.
From EBB I can't help but choose an obvious selection, "The Runaway Slave at Pilgrim's Point." Like the "Indian woman" above, the piece ties unforgettable, heart-wrenching imagery with, in this case, a very overt political message regarding the dehumanization, violence, and other abuses that accompanied slavery. I would enjoy a conversation about ideas others had regarding the teaching of this poem. The length is a challenge for undergraduates, I think, but I also can appreciate the idea that EBB wants to deny our impulse to let the trip into this woman's world be a fleeting and forgotten glance. She wants us to stare, and be uncomfortable, and yearn for escape that is not present. I wondered what views people might have on the mother's decision to end her baby's life - was her motivation entirely governed by sparing her descendent the painful life in slavery she'd endured, or was it mixed with wrath for the sins committed against her, or something else entirely I'm neglecting here? (Or, from a pedagogical perspective, is your hope that students would view the protagonist as entirely heroic or something more complex?) An article by Sarah Brophy in Victorian poetry points out that the poem was written during EBB's honeymoon, when she was "most certainly still exhilarated by her defiance of her father in eloping with [Robert] Browning." I wondered if other teachers would suggest sharing this sort of biographical information in their work with students - on one hand the potential emotional reverberations between slave-holding father and disapproving daughter are fascinating, in another way they detract and distract from the political messages the poem itself intends. The danger would seem to be allowing an impression that the raw emotion that gives the piece much of its power is fueled by EBB's frustrations with her father and his patriarchal dominance rather than the admittedly parallel but far more critical slave/owner dynamics that are the genuine focus of the piece.